% 9 ' os t CAit t WAFFLE 0 .,>9 •0 • veV ,ek\e- 0". cc‘eN & Ncr2‘ oe9 04 ,7 3 GREAT LOCATIONS: 26505 NORTHWESTERN HWY./SOUTHFIELD 29556 ORCHARD LL1FARMINGTON HILLS NEAR 13 MILE 6680 ORCHARD LK.1W. BLOOMFIELD ENTERTAINMENT WAFFLE OMELETTE OMELETTE BUY ONE PLAIN WAFFLE OR ONE Agent Rick Brode PLAIN OMELETTE ONLY WITH TOAST & JELLY . . . GET ONE .. . Continued from preceding page FREE!! VALID MONDAY THRU FRIDAY FRANCHISES AVAILABLE IN SELECTED AREAS j THE BRASS POINTE r WINTER SPECIALS BAR-B-Q SLAB FOR 2. . $ 11 45 BAR-B-Q CHICKEN FOR I 2 $795 DINE-IN OR CARRY-OUT Expires 5-6-88 JN THE BRASS POINTE OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK FROM 11 a.m. 24234 Orchard Lake Rd. at 10 Mile 476-1377 T l!ny! 1st ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL rwE,RE PROUD OF OUR PIZZA! COUPON TRI I 50% OFF ANY SIZE PIZZA • 1 Coupon Per Order • 1 Pizza Per Coupon • No other coupons with this special PICKUP OR DELIVERY 26093 W. 12 MILE RD. ° es JUST EAST OF NORTHWESTERN HWY. IN THE 12-HI PLAZA Expires 5-7-88 PIZZA 'N STUFF 357-6500 A Favorite Place For Food & Friends S _ t & p e :li tauran R— uring Over 400 Fantastic Menu Items GIVE MOM A GREAT MOTHER'S DAY AT SILVERMAN'S! 20% 0 YOUR ENTIRE BILL AT ANY OF OUR &LOCATIONS! 1 • JN 1 Not More Than 4 Persons Per Coupon GRAND RIVER & 8 MILE (Next to El Nibble Nook) 473-5441 Also Visit Us At 10 MILE & MEADOWBROOK (Bet. Haggerty & Novi Rd.) 349-2885 Our Other Locations: • Plymouth • Livonia • Westland • Garden City • Taylor • Howell ALL OPEN 24 HOURS EXCEPT NOVI JN —1 me, 'Rick, I like you, go ahead, handle this negotia- tion for me.' And I ended up basically close to doubling her salary as a principal an- chor on Channel 2." His client list has expand- ed since then, basically, he says, "by word of mouth!' He gives each client personal at- tention, employing no assistants. "When they call here, they're calling for me," Brode says. "When they're getting a shoe endorsement or we're working on a televi- sion commercial, it's me that's doing it and they ex- pect me to do it. I don't really see how you could really bring somebody else into that, because of the nature of this relationship with the people. When I hear of a guy representing 100 athletes or something, I'm scratching my head in amazement thinking, how does he have time, how does he even remember their names?" Just as different clients re- quire different services, they also insist on different levels of contact during negotia- tions. "Certain clients want to know everything that's go- ing on and are kept up to date on every move I make," ex- plains Brode. "Others really just say, 'Rick, go out and do what you can and let me know what happens! So . . . in this business, it's different from everything else, because you are dealing with in- dividuals. There's psychological things you've got to deal with, emotional things you've got to deal with. It's unlike any other business." Brode feels that good agents are born, not made. How do you prepare for a career as an agent, he is asked. "I don't know, I don't think you can ,prepare for it. It doesn't hurt to go to law school to become familiar with contracts. But I just think it's something that somebody's kind of born with. It's like, how do you become a professional athlete? Unless you have that special given gift, how do you do it?" That is why Brode refers to his trade as "kind of an art form." He continues, "If peo- ple ask me, what am I, a lot of times I respond, I'm an ar- tist! And they're confused with that, but really, a lot of it is just inherent, natural ability to determine a per- son's market value. And then the secret is, how do you go out and maximize that market value?" To maximize that value, Brode finds out what others in comparable positions earn. In sports, he receives specific information from the player's Agent Brode wonders when Woody Allen will make a movie about him. associations. In radio and TV, he must speculate and use word-of-mouth information. He makes full use of statistics, such as broadcast ratings or batting averages. But does he need to become an expert in all these dif- ferent fields? "No," he responds. "And what people get confused about, I think, is that they feel you have to be a sports fan in order to negotiate a sports contract." While Brode has never argued a case in court, he has been involved in salary ar- bitration, pleading a financial case instead of a legal one. He did the first salary arbitra- tion in which the Tigers were involved, working for second baseman Lou Whitaker. "I had prepared the case and I was in Chicago in the arbitration hearing," he recalls. "I had listed some of the salaries of the second basemen on a board to il- lustrate for the arbitrator what the values were. I wanted him to visually see it, without just me saying it, to have a bigger impact. And he asked me to list the teams of the players. And I said to the arbitrator, I'd like to, if I could refer to my notes. I didn't know 'ern off the top of my head. So, (Tiger general manager) Bill Lajoie was sit- ting there, I said, 'unless Bill Lajoie wants to help me with this.' Of course, he knew all the teams and we listed 'ern. And we won that arbitration. The point of all of this is, real- ly, you have to have an in- stinct for business and market value and creativity in negotiations more so than what was Babe Ruth's batting average many years ago." Another example of artistic agentry Brode cites involves the Tiger's double-play duo of Whitaker and Trammell. Brode was told about the TV show Magnum PI whose star, Tom Selleck, wears a Tiger cap on the show. "I never knew who Tom Selleck was and I had never seen an episode of Magnum PI in my life," says Brode. "About 2:00 in the morning, I got up, I just wrote myself a little note — `Lou and Alan, Magnum PI.' " Brode wrote to the show's producer the next day, he con- tinues, "stating that I repre- sent Lou and Alan and I think it would be a fun idea for everybody if they were to appear on the show, since this guy Magnum PI is a big Tiger fan. And three weeks later we were in Hawaii doing a seg- ment of the show with Lou and Alan . . . They don't teach you any of that in law school!' Brode does feel that in the big-money worlds of sports and entertainment, which at- tract many unscrupulous agents, working with an at- torney provides some securi- ty. "Anybody can be an agent," he points out. "There is no educational re- quirements, there's no rules or regulations that you have to abide by. All you need to do is have a client and you can call yourself an agent. As an attorney, you're bound by a code of ethics, you have an education, you have to pass these requirements. And there's a standard that you have to meet in order to call yourself an attorney." The best-known cases of abuses by sports agents in- volve college athletes. Col- legians are not allowed to ac- cept money from an agent while they attend school. If they are discovered accepting money while still in school, they lose their scholarship, along with any remaining athletic eligibility. Brode feels that some universities share the blame for recent scan- dals, along with the unscrupulous agents. Continued on Page 57